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BATTERING THE BOCHE 



BY 

PRESTON GIBSON 



ILLUSTRATED 
WITH PHOTOGRAPHS 




NEW YORK 

THE CENTURY CO. 

1918 






Copyright, 1918, by 
The Century Co. ^ 



Copyright, 1918, by 
The Sun Publishing and Printing Associatioh 



Published, April. 1918 



MAY -3 (918 



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©CLA49595 



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TO 
L. M. U 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/batteringbocheOOgibs 



Head QUARTERS U. S. Marine Corps, 

Office of the Quartermaster, 

Washington, D. C. 

Mr. Gibson presents a very graphic pic- 
ture of scenes and incidents along the French 
front and of the dangers that attend the 
work of the personnel of the Ambulance 
Corps, of which he formed a part. 

Particularly interesting is his description 
of the splendidly heroic conduct of the gal- 
lant French at all times and of their unselfish, 
uncomplaining and stoical attitude in the 
face of the greatest suffering their country 
has ever experienced. It should be an incen- 
tive and example to every American who 
goes to help them. 

Charles L. McCawley. 
Brigadier General, Quartermaster, 
U. S. Marines. 



Preston Gibson received the French Cross of War with the 
following : 

21° Division d'Infie. 

au Q.G. le ler Decembre 1917. 

ETAT-MAJOR , 

CITATION A L'ORDRE DE LA DIVISION. 

Extrait Ordre No. 204 

IiE GENERAL Commandant la 21e, Division d'Infanterie 

cite a r Ordre de la Division 

les miUtaires dont les noms suivent: 

SERVICE DE SANTE 
Section Sanitaire Automobile Americane No. 7 
GIBSON, Preston, Volontaire Americain. 

" Volontaire americain admirable de courage et de sang 
" froid. S'est particulierement distingue devant St. 
" Quentin et dans I'Aisne par son devouement et son 
" intrepidite a I'occasion de nombreuses evacuations en 
" zone dangereuse." 

Le General DAUVIN 
Commandant la 21e Division d'Infie. 
Signe: DAUVIN. 



Translation. 
21st. Division of Infantry 

ETAT-MAJOR at Headquarters, December 1, 1917 

CITATION TO THE ORDER OF THE DIVISION 

Extract. Order No. 204 

THE GENERAL Commanding the 21st. Division of Infantry 

cites to the Order of the Division the following soldiers: 

SERVICE DE SANTE. 
AMERICAN SANITARY AUTOMOBILE SERVICE No. 7. 
GIBSON, Preston, American Volunteer 

" American volunteer, admirable for his courage and cool- 
ness. He particularly distinguished himself before St. 
Quentin and in the Aisne by his devotion and his fear- 
lessness on the occasion of numerous evacuations in 
dangerous places." 

General DAUVIN 
Commanding the 21st, Division of Infantry 
Signed: DAUVIN. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Preston Gibson Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

A camouflaged bridge over the Somme . . 8 

Poilu with gas-mask and respirator in dug- 
out of a third-line trench 9 

A lookout in a trench observation post . . 24 

An improvised headquarters on the Aisne 
front 25 

A " Saucisse," used for observation before 
the attack at Chemin des Dames ... 40 

French defenses thrown up on the Aisne 
plateau 41 

Barbed wire over third-line trench at 
Chemin des Dames 60 

First-line communication trench^ Chemin des 
Dames 61 

Observer near Malmaison^ Chemin des 
Dames 72 

Just before firing a small gun from the sec- 
ond line trench, Chemin des Dames . . 73 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

Carrying wounded through shelled village 
of Vailly after attack at Chemin des 
Dames 88 

French poilus receiving the Crois de Guerre, 
after the Battle of Malmaison ... 89 

German prisoners used as stretcher-bearers 
after the slaughter at Malmaison . . . 104 

Mass being held underground near Mal- 
maison 105 

(These photographs are used by courtesy of The 
XVIIIth Century Shop) 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 



' WJSTENOS 



♦ BRUSStUj 




SC^^uf Of rMLia 



1. The St. Qiientin region. The author was here 
during the attack of August 20-2f6, 191T. 

2. The famous Chemin des Dames — now occupied 
in part by American troops — where the author was 
during the attack of October, 1917. 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 



PART I 

PARIS. Arriving there in July, 1917, 
one is struck by the great number of 
English and American officers. The cafes 
are crowded, as are the hotels. There are a 
number of private motors and a great many 
taxicabs. 

The town itself is absolutely closed at 9 :30 
p. M. There is no dancing and one sees few 
French people among the pleasure seekers, 
as the whole nation is in mourning. Soldiers 
abound everywhere. It is seldom that one 
sees a young man in civilian clothes, and then 
it is because he has been wounded and brought 
back. The taxicab drivers all look like 
rather young Rip Van Winkles. 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

When one goes to the Madeleine, that 
beautiful church, one is absolutely awed and 
silenced in one's heart on observing the hun- 
dreds, even thousands, of children, girls, mid- 
dle-aged women and old women, all in mourn- 
ing. One hardly ever sees a woman except 
in black. It dawns upon one's sensibility 
for the first time that out there a few miles 
from Paris are the sons, brothers and hus- 
bands of these women, those that are alive, 
and when one is determined or has deter- 
mined to do one's part a curious feeling of 
perhaps dread or fear or apprehension is ex- 
perienced as one realizes that in a few days 
one will be in the midst of what has brought 
about the sorrow of the world. 

SUBLIMITY OF THE MASS 

As one looks at an old lady of 75 bowed 
with grief and sorrow — she has given five 
sons to the conflict and they are all lying un- 
der tiny wood crosses near the city of Meaux 
4 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

by the swift moving Mame — one's thinking 
cap comes down close over one's forehead, 
and the sublimity of the mass is greatly en- 
hanced by the hush in the hearts of those who 
are kneeling in silent meditation and adora- 
tion. 

The streets are gay. The shop windows 
are brilliant with every device to please the 
eye of the traveller. Girls, pretty girls, 
abound on the streets, and the soldiers that 
are back on leave are especially gay — a 
gayety of a rather hysterical sort, for they 
have left those frightful scenes only for two 
or four days, and, I may phrase it, as they 
are coming in they are going out. 

There have been many amusing incidents 
so far in connection with the language. An 
American hired a small victoria at the rail- 
way station on arriving in Paris and was 
going through to another railway station. 
He called out to the driver to stop and asked 
a wounded soldier, " Ou est la guerre? " 
5 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

which means " Where is the war ? " instead 
of saying " Ou est le gare? " which means 
" Where is the railway station? " Where- 
upon the soldier, thinking that he was mak- 
ing fun of the war, became perfectly furious 
and began to swear at him in French. 

The American, being absolutely certain of 
his good French, kept repeating, " Ou est la 
guerre? Ou est la guerre? " whereupon 
the soldier tapped him on the head with his 
crutch. A great crowd collected as the 
American continued to call out, " Where is 
the war?" instead of "Where is the rail- 
way station ? " A policeman finally under- 
stood his mistake and he was allowed to 
proceed. 

FRENCH WHOLLY APPRECIATIVE 

The appreciation of the French, women 
and men, of the coming of the Americans is 
really beautiful. French soldiers go out of 
6 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

their way to be polite. French girls in the 
shops and everywhere else, all have a pleas- 
ant word and smile. But this sentiment 
does not exist among the women only for the 
foreigner who has come to do his bit. It 
exists in the heart of the French girl for any 
and every soldier. 

In the parade on the Fourteenth of July, 
when the troops came marching down the 
Champa El3^sees, in every rifle was a tiny 
American flag — a great sea of men and 
American flags coming down the loveliest 
boulevard in the world. The soldiers were 
simply deluged with flowers thrown by girls 
aU along the sidewalks, and one very pretty 
girl standing near the Travelers' Club was 
throwing kisses to the soldiers as they went 
by. One youngster in the ranks called out, 
" Oh, that 's no good ! You 're too far 
away." Wliereupon she ran out through the 
crowd, threw her arms around him, kissed 
him and ran back again. 
7 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

HAVE UNDAUNTED SPIRIT 

It is that spirit of youth and joy in spite 
of all the sadness and sorrow that has kept 
France intact and has enabled her soldiers 
to do and fight and bleed and die until the 
soil of the whole country is saturated with 
the blood of her best men. That day 9,000 
men marched bearing their tattered stan- 
dards before them. One woman, stretching 
out her arms, cried : " Merci, merci pour 
nous, les civils" And the crowd took it up, 
calling, " Merci, mercV 

The medals for the day had Washington 
and Lafayette and the date July 4, 1776, on 
one side, July 14, 1789, on the other. In 
the afternoon, when the patriots of Alsace, 
2,000 of them, went and paid tribute to the 
statue of Strasburg, they nearly covered the 
beautiful figure with roses and lilies, but alone 
and symbolic over her heart was draped the 
Stars and Stripes, our flag, the American 
8 




Poilu with gas-mask and respirator in dugout of a 
third-line trench 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

flag. It made one's heart beat faster and 
somehow brought a lump in one's throat. 
France has an ally in us that she can love 
without conditions. 

Those who can speak French a little are 
constantly asked questions by those who 
can't, such as " Why do they call so many 
dogs in France, * Ici 'F " One hates to tell 
them the reason is that " ici " means " here," 
and of course in calling the dog they say 
" Here, here 1 " 

For a time there was a certain criticism 
of the great number of English officers in 
Paris, but that is now entirely changed and 
the criticism, if any, has been directed toward 
the great number of American officers in 
Paris. That, too, is being changed. 

There have been gross and vile exaggera- 
tions of the amount of drinking done by the 
officers of all nations in Paris, and I feel 
that I should go on record as stating that if 
there were any drunken American officers in 
9 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

Paris I did n't see them, and I saw a great 
number. 

CHARGES OF EXCESSES ARE LIES 

There may have been one or two men 
drunk, and this, of course, for mongers of 
scandal and those who walk with their bellies 
on the ground, would be sufficient cause to de- 
clare that the whole American army was 
drunk. But the statement that such conduct 
is common is a base and unwarranted lie. 
There is no finer officer in the world than the 
American officer, and certainly no braver sol- 
dier, as has been proved in the past. And he 
who tries or attempts by any means to take 
away from the man who is doing his part over 
there his good name should be court-mar- 
tialled and shot. 

Going to the front for the first time is like 
the first experience of a child at the Hippo- 
drome. One finds one's self at first amazed 
and more or less awed by the magnitude of 
10 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

conditions and one finds one's self looking in 
every direction to see everything one can of 
the whole show. 

The train goes along through a very lovely 
country, following the Marne, and then turns 
north toward the famous Somme. One sees 
from the window attractive villages. There 
is no sign of war. Suddenly one comes to 
Soissons, and on alighting one sees for the 
first ti];ne the Machiavellian hand of the hein- 
ous Hun. The beautiful cathedral is shat- 
tered, the houses are in ruins, homes are deso- 
late and broken. 

Proceeding from there, one motors out to- 
ward the front, passing through tiny villages, 
all of which have been razed to the ground. 
It is my first glimpse of the dreadful devasta- 
tion and I am beginning actually to see what 
I have heard only bits of. Every one is busy. 
Little gray cars rush to and fro; there 
are messengers on motorcycles; artillery 
wagons, long trains of them, going slowly 
11 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

by; and a stream of camions, ambulances, 
soldiers. 

ROADS REPAIRED CONSTANTLY 

One is first struck by the wonderful condi- 
tion of the road. Thousands of Moroccans 
and French are constantly filling every tiny 
hole as soon as it appears, and though the 
traffic all day and all night is absolutely con- 
tinuous, yet the roads are kept up. 

Our camp is in a wood; about twenty 
tents; very picturesque. The sunlit Somme 
winds itself about the camp. Our tents are 
painted to represent foliage so the Boche air- 
planes cannot locate them. One man has 
painted trees and a stream on his tent and a 
young girl reclining on the bank. One 
could only imagine that the idea he had was 
that if a Boche did locate his tent, on seeing 
the picture he would be too excited to drop a 
bomb straight. 

And now I hear for the first time the 
12 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

boom of the guns of the heavy artillery about 
four miles away from the camp, about eight 
miles from the third line. It was an inter- 
mittent firing, boom, boom, only every half 
hour or so. It was not as impressive as I 
had anticipated. It was only ominous of 
what was to be later. 

I was given two gas masks and a hel- 
met and was ordered up to the poste de se- 
cours. , 

It rains continuously. To-night there is 
a frightful storm, but above nature, sublime 
in their individuality, the hungry guns hold 
the conquest of the air. Nature becomes 
more wonderful as one is close to it. The 
trees, a few front of our tents are such good 
friends for they protect us and shield us from 
the enemy's gaze. The Somme keeps our 
bodies fresh and clean and strong and our 
mouths cool after the dust and grime of the 
labor laden roads, and the grass and woods 
give us rest and comfort. The blue sky 
13 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

though is most essential for an offensive, for 
if it rains our aero eyes are blinded, we can- 
not communicate with our artillery and it is 
difficult to proceed. 

I am sent up to the poste de secours, just 
a little brick building about a mile and a half 
from the third line, which in turn is a thou- 
sand yards from the firing line. August 20 
I see my first dead man of the war. They 
bring him in, shot through the breast, and 
they place him in the room next to where we 
eat. It is hot. The flies fly back and forth 
through the cracked wooden door from this 
corpse to our bread and jam. They could 
have as well left him in the yard, but every 
one wishes to house the dead. Why ? 

ORDERED TO THE THIRD LINE 

At S:45 A. M. I hear the field telephone 
ring and I am ordered to the third line. My 
comrade, who knows the road, appears, and 
we start out of the gate, turn to the right 

14 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

over the hill, then to the left, straight for 
the trenches, over a road bathed in moonlight 
and in the midst of the frightful thunder of 
artillery. 

How it impresses one, the blazing, the deaf- 
ening roar of the heavy and light artillery 1 
We pass the last observation tree, turn to the 
right and fly along a road screened from Ger- 
man trench eyes only by a latticework of 
boughs most of which are broken or blown 
down. The road is filled with shell holes. 

We arrive at the third line. Here is the 
dugout. I go down ; the steps are all as per- 
fect as if it were Marble House, and we de- 
scend into the oblong room. There are a 
surgeon, a man on a stretcher, quiet with just 
a flicker of life when he sees me ; shelves upon 
which are candles, bandages, bottles. 

We take him up. When we reach the top 

of the steps one of the brancardiers 

(stretcher bearers) drops his end and the 

man topples over. Not a complaint, not a 

15 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

murmur. They pick him up and put him in 
the car. His leg is badly shot, below the 
knee. I give him a cigarette and he is gratc'- 
ful. They tell him to cheer up, that he will 
soon be at the hospital. He smiles, points to 
his leg: " Ca ne fait rien, c'est la guerre. 
Monsieur, C^est tout.'"' 

LIGHTED BY STAR SHELL 

I start along the road. Suddenly a great 
white light looms up to the left about 300 
yards away, and I think I am finished, but it 
is only a star shell. These are made of silk 
with four lighted balls at each corner and 
have a tiny parachute. They are shot up 
into the air with a large revolver and hang in 
the air, throwing light all around for a great 
distance. They are used nearly every second 
by both sides to see if there is any activity in 
No Man's Land or elsewhere along the 
trenches. After getting over my fright I 
felt not unlike Paul of Tarsus. They are 
16 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

very beautiful and tale telling, these star 
shells. 

Of course a German observer had seen the 
car, but one cannot drive fast with wounded. 
It was a moment to give one a thrill. The 
moon, the blazing of the French guns about 
800 yards away, the wondrous star shells like 
great, constant comets of light, the glutton- 
ous gases sweeping their brooms of death, the 
silence qf the dugout, the stillness of the 
wounded, the scraping, whistling, screaming 
shrapnel shells overhead, the firecracker rat- 
tling of the mitrailleuses, the glare of the 
signal rockets, the stupendous disembowel- 
ling roar of the artillery miles to the rear, 
the hush of death — all, all were electrify- 
ing, appalling, uplifting ! 

A shell feU about 200 yards to the left. I 
turn the bend and drive away from the lines. 
There appears a tall, gaunt, handsome figure 
of a man on an equally tall, magnificent horse. 
His cloak enshrouds him and the steps of his 
17 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

horse seem as measured as the thoughts of 
the rider. The moon strikes him aslant. 

He hails me and asks if the road has been 
shelled. I reply, " A little." He inquired 
quickly, " Many holes ? " I reply, '' A few, 
sir." He seems thoughtful for a moment. 
A star shell goes up quite near us. He is 
thinking — of a woman, perhaps, somewhere. 
** It is late," he says. " I go." 

The sun was waking. He must be there 
with his battery in place before dawn. No 
one can pass over this road from sunrise to 
sunset. He gives the order '' Forward ! " 
The men speak quietly to the horses. Shrap- 
nel breaks over our heads and my stranger of 
the night moves toward so many that seek 
his death. 

I must confess that a queer feeling of se- 
curity comes over one when one drives away 
from the third line trench for the first time, 
away from that cauldron of blood and mud, 
and though I was only about a mile from the 
18 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

dugout and the Boche shrapnel was scream- 
ing a message of destruction over my head, 
jet, though the feeling of security is droll, it 
is true. 

The roaring of the French guns as one 
passes the batteries on the way back from 
the front is like the constant pealing of the 
most terrible thunder, simply disembowelling 
nature. It never ceases, and appalls one 
by its force, strength and frightfulness. 
As they go over one's head toward the Boche 
trenches it is difficult to realize that the sing- 
ing shells are wending their day to kill and 
wound men. 

One passes a constant stream of ammuni- 
tion wagons, men, ambulances, all coming and 
going. Overhead areos and balloons are 
thick in the sky and within a stone's throw 
there is a wireless mast made of bamboo poles. 
Every house and barn is completely gutted,, 
with only a few walls standing, and those 
with great rents. 

19 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

The Boches are constantly shooting at 
our areos with their anti-aircraft guns and 
one can see often as many as fourteen or fif- 
teen puffs of black smoke clustered around 
one of our 'planes. The Boche anti-aircraft 
shells have only black smoke. Each puff 
hangs in the air and stays there a long time 
before disappearing. Every few minutes in 
the woods the artillery signals with rifle shots 
to the aeros circling about and the aeros in 
reply give the German range. 

It was not long before I was at the hos- 
pital. 

The next night the moon was like a great, 
well washed and. shining silver plate edged 
with gold. It hung in a cloud of rarest blue, 
surrounded by twinkling stars. The sky was 
bright now, the moon our friend as well as 
our enemy, and one could see the German 
guns clearly as they fired in turn. 

Soon I was again at the dugout. 



20 



PART II 

IT is planned to take the city of St. Quen- 
tin, which lies about eight kilometers 
from where we are. The attack is scheduled 
for to-morrow. 

The fidd telephone rings. The cathedral 
at St. Quentin is on fire. The flames are 
high in the air. We expect the attack, but 
the wind is from the wrong direction. For 
the past month they have been bringing up 
gas cylinders, but each day the wind has been 
blowing directly in our faces. It is to be 
hoped that it will change to-morrow. The 
roads are filled with camions. Chasseurs, 
Moroccans and Zouaves, all attacking troops 
going up. 

We had a visit to-day from an American 
who came out to observe. He was rather 
21 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

a comic looking person whose face gave up 
the struggle between the mouth and the 
apple of Adam. He left just before the 
attack to make his report in Paris. 

Boche 'planes were coming over in 
droves. One got directly above us, evi- 
dently taking photographs of some of the 
artillery batteries. It must have been cir- 
cling for half an hour when like a meteor 
out of a white cloud about 10,000 feet up 
came a French speed aero and flew directly 
toward the Boche aero. 

The German tried to dip and duck and 
turn, but the Frenchman followed him and 
pounced upon him from above. There was 
a roar of the Boche mitrailleuse. The 
Frenchman was maimed. Then both ma- 
chines turned over and over in the air and 
fell in the wood just near us. It was a nerve 
racking sight and thrilling. 

We rushed over and found the machines 
entangled one with the other, the two Boches 
S2 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

and the two Frenchmen mangled and burned 
beyond recognition. What a brave deed 
and how little it seemed to count I Yet by 
giving their lives, the French fliers probably 
saved at least two entire French artillery 
batteries, which would have been bombed 
and destroyed before dawn if the German 
had got back with his photographs. 

The French are a glorious race. They 
never weaken and when they go into Paris on 
leave they do not loaf around doing nothing, 
but at once go back to their trade, watch- 
makers, chauffeurs or tailors — - all work 
until it is time for them to travel again the 
long road to the trenches. 

We are now quite near St. Quentin with 
telephone connections to our advanced poste 
de secours. As the Germans and French 
have a perfect system of listening in on a 
telephone by means of an instrument which 
is stuck in the ground and which enables 
you to hear conversations going along on 
23 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

the other side of the trenches, all villages 
near the lines have been renamed. The 
street names are comic. 

Here in this village, a mile from the firing 
line, we have the street of Rheins, the 
street of Lyons, the street of Paris; it is 
also necessary that curious numbers and 
odd codes be employed. Thus when send- 
ing for small ammunition a message will 
sound something like this : " Send to Paris 
street five baskets of grapes," which would 
mean five wagon loads of small ammu- 
nition. " Send one small handbag to 
Rheins street " would mean one small 
automobile at once. " Send three large 
trunks by express to Soissons street," would 
mean send three large automobiles quickly, 
and so on. The detail of the war is almost 
greater than the war itself. 

In the afternoon of August 22 I went up 
to our last observation tree through a ceme- 
tery whose appearance was harrowing. 
24 




A lookout in a trench observation post 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

Every grave had been opened by the Ger- 
mans and the little chapel razed to the 
ground. In some of the underground mau- 
soleums the Germans had lived and there 
were German newspapers strewn here and 
there. Then there were graves out of which 
the Boches had thrown the French bodies, 
putting some of their own killed in their 
places. 

I ascended the ladder of the observation 
tree and found established aloft a tele- 
graph operator with powerful lenses and in- 
struments. He let me look through his 
glasses. Within half a mile, directly below 
me, were the French trenches and, only a 
little further beyond, the German lines. I 
could see the towers of the cathedral at St. 
Quentin. 

It was a great sight and the spectacle was 

made more impressive by the whizzing of the 

German shells breaking in every direction, 

the screaming of the French batteries and 

25 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

the soft purr of the French aeros, much 
smoother and faster than the Germans', 
overhead. One skilful German aviator came 
in, swept so low as to be out of the im- 
mediate range of the French guns, went 
straight for a balloon, and destroyed it 
and got back safely, flying almost along the 
ground. 

Before writing concerning a night which 
enthralled, amazed, thrilled and stunned me, 
I must say a word or two about my impres- 
sions gathered from men everywhere I have 
been — poilus, Captains, Generals, ambu- 
lance men, sergeants, nurses, cooks, lookout 
men, stretcher bearers. It is this : France 
is brave, but is tired. 

France needs men, men for her soil, her 
industries, her homes, her army. And we 
need an American army, not on Long Island, 
not in South Carolina, not near Paris, not in 
the army zone near Soissons, but actually in 
and on that Lane of Blood which sweeps 
26 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

from St. Quentin to the Vosges, in the 
trenches. But, as an English officer said, 
" When Fritz meets the Sammies hell will 
break loose." 

The wind is favorable, the attack is for 
to-night. It is very dark and inky. You 
cannot even see the end of the fender in front 
of the car. There it but very little traffic, 
the main road to the front is quiet, there is 
little firing and the two lines of trenches 
seem to be getting a well needed rest. A few 
Boche star shells light up my car, but that 
is all. 

I reached the poste de secours and got out. 
Of course I had on my helmet and carried 
both gas masks. This is a very bad gas 
sector. It was a close night, the wind blow- 
ing gently toward the German lines. I went 
into the dugout for a moment. Here were 
literally dripping surgeons and stretcher- 
bearers, soaked-in-blood heroes, men and 
boys, with great holes in their heads, arms 
27 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

and legs, or shot through the body, all 
silent in their suffering. By the dim candle- 
light the surgeons went about their task 
ploddingly and methodically. 

I soon had my load and started back 
along the same road to our base hospital. 
An hour later I was again at the base. 
There were no more wounded to be trans- 
ported. All was quiet. I saw two men 
standing on top of the third line dugout, 
so climbed up and discovered they were 
a General and his aid. We smoked a cig- 
arette and talked of Paris. 

It was the dawn of August 24, 1917, 
about a quarter of one in the morning. I 
must have stood there half an hour when 
by the light of occasional star shells I 
saw stealing over the meadow, silent, death 
dealing and grim, in its task, the gas, gas, 
gas. To the right and left, as far as one 
could see, great masses of vapor went slowly 
toward the Boche lines. It was like a cloud 
28 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

of gray-blue chiffon as borne by the wind it 
sought the lives of those who could neither 
advance nor retreat. And so it went on 
and on till it hung like a pall over the enemy. 
Then resolved itself into a great cloud, wave 
after wave, bearing death and the greatest 
agony. 

Suddenly, as though God Himself had 
rent the heavens with His hand, there blazed 
forth :^rom 800 guns a fiery roar that seemed 
as if hell had broken loose. The General 
remarked to his aid as he looked at his watch, 
« It 's 1 :15. The wind is good." The tir 
de barrage (curtain of fire) had begun, 
throwing a curtain of fire in front of the 
Boche front line and a second curtain of fire 
back of the Boche third line, so that they 
could neither advance nor retreat, while they 
breathed the gas between. 

Now the star shells in thousands lit up the 
sky. It was a great sight. Back of me the 
75s and 155s were sending their shells over 
29 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

my head and in front and to the right were 
thousands of star shells over the trenches, 
and hand grenades exploding and enemy ar- 
tillery dropping bombs and shells near the 
road. 

Wounded were now being brought in and 
French caught in their own gas. Here for 
the first time I saw a gas sufferer ; the effect 
is terrible. The gassed men cannot get their 
breath; they cough, spit and vomit blood. 
When I reached the hospital with my first 
load the men had suffered great agony. 
But there was no murmur or complaint. It 
is a horrible death, that of a gassed man. 
But only four of the affected died, we got 
them to the hospital so efficiently. 

The gas was shut off about 5 A. M. and the 
artillery continued all day and into the night. 
Then the order " Comrades, over the top ! " 
was given and out they came with bayonets 
and hand grenades — rifles are seldom used 
any more in charges; they are practically 
30 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

obsolete except to hold a bayonet. The 
main reason for this is that an individual 
rapid-fire gun — handled by one man — or 
a similar gun handled by two men is much 
more effective. They shoot from 300 to 700 
a minute. One could take 16 men and four 
rapid-fire guns and be more effective than a 
whole section of infantry firing rifles. Out, 
over, through and into the barbed wire they 
went, cutting, hewing, slashing their way to 
No. 1 trench, and they took it by storm. 
The Boches were finished by the gas. This 
continued until 4? P. M. Then our curtain 
of fire was lifted. 

At 5 A. M. August 25, the Boches started 
a tir de barrage, but the French held on. 
This lasted all day. The Boches attempted 
a counter from their second line that night 
with hand grenades, so we had our job cut 
out for us and we worked for nearly ninety 
hours without a wink of sleep, all of us, and 
just coffee and bread, and our boots on. 
31 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

Here I must say a word concerning our 
American Lieutenant Marcel Du Cassee. 
He stood outside of that dug-out all night 
and all day during the entire attack with 
shrapnel bursting over him constantly and 
directed the loading of the wounded into the 
cars, helping the stretcher-bearers himself. 
It was due mainly to his alertness, courage 
and magnificent spirit that we were enabled 
to evacuate the wounded so rapidly. He was 
justly cited by the French General for his 
splendid work. 

Our French Lieutenant, De Rose, did his 
share and if the war has been of no benefit 
to me in any other way it has at least made 
me many firm friends, whom I have seen and 
admired in good days and in bad, and none 
of these friendships do I cherish more than 
that of this splendid soldier, Lieutenant De 
Rose. 

The last fellow I took to the hospital was 
shot in the side of the head. He was very 
handsome, about twenty-five years old, with 
32 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

a wonderful clear skin, a fine figure, square 
shoulders, small waist and fine hands. He 
lay quite still as we put him in the ambulance 
and I bolstered up his head with my overcoat. 
He just looked at me as a dog looks at one 
when you are binding its wound. 

I knew the road quite well, and though a 
stream of great wagons and men were going 
up — fodder for the men and for the guns 
— I went very fast and helped carry him into 
the hospital myself. He lay quite still, a 
great red blotch on the linen around his head. 
I leaned over him and whispered : " You '11 
be all right now; this is the hospital." He 
opened his big eyes and looked at the dingy 
lamp flickering over his head, at the nurse, 
the doctor and me. " Bon Dieu! " he mur- 
mured. 

Then they started to undress him, but he 
would not let them take off his coat. I 
guessed why. So I took the picture case out 
of his pocket and put it in his hand. He 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

tried to smile. They took off his coat and 
began to unwind the bandage. As they 
pulled the cloth away the blood poured out. 

He sat half way up then and said to me: 
"You brought me here.?" I nodded. "If 
I can only see her, you know ; you know it 's 
France and her, and if you come back — 
if it had not been for you — " 

" Oh, no," I said, " it 's just part of my 
job. I '11 come in and see you." 

I did in a few days. She was kneeling by 
his cot holding his hand. I was happy and 
went up to him. " I am so glad you are go- 
ing to pull through. That was a bad hole," 
I said. 

" I am going to be all right. Where is 
the American who brought me here.'' I 
would like to see him again," he replied. 

" I do not know," I said and went out. 

The next day began the Boche counter at- 
tack, starting with the mustard gas. This 
is sent over in shells which make no noise 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

whatever compared with shrapnel. They 
drop in a field or near a trench, open like a 
cauliflower and exude a gas which aff^ects the 
eyes so that they water terrifically and itch. 

You at once put on your gas mask, and 
if you are wise you keep it on. The Boches 
have a system by which they first send over 
this mustard gas, then when your eyes pain 
and itch so you are tempted to lift the mask 
they fire shells of deadly poisonous gas, and 
in breathing this you are killed. They also 
have a gas which it is practically impossible 
to detect, which is sent in the same way and 
which is odorless and tasteless. It is very 
poisonous. The shells in which it is car- 
ried open like a lily pad. 

The wearing of a gas mask gives one a 
feeling of suff^ocation mingled with a curious 
sense of a lurking danger. The bombs drop 
so quietly and give out their charge of cer- 
tain death so gently that one sometimes finds 
oneself looking on all sides for these German 
35 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

gas bombs and even thinking of lifting one's 
mask to see how the stuff smells. Several 
have tried it, and men continue to try it 
through curiosity. There is a man who 
makes little wooden crosses for them. 

A great many French are caught by gas 
liberated by their own side. Nothing up to 
this time had impressed me so vividly as gas. 
Injuries of men to their arms, faces, legs or 
heads did not seem comparable with the fate 
of those who lay silently, coughing once in a 
while, lethargic, dormant, practically dead, 
wounded by this unseen spectre. 

We assist the surgeon in bringing many 
of them to. He cuts the artery inside the 
elbow and the blood comes out perfectly 
black. I take the wrist of one and bend it 
backward and forward until the flow be- 
comes red. Then a bandage is put on and 
the man is hurried to the base hospital. 

About dusk the Boches began to let out an- 
other link of their batteries, more and more 
36 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

screaming " I come ! I come ! " and the 
wounded were brought in in great numbers. 
Following this the Boches attacked with the 
bayonet on the right near where the English 
joined our lines, but they were held and 
driven back. This lasted another twenty- 
four hours, when the Boches retreated. 

In my last load was a poUu called Louis. 
I did not intend to relate the incident, but 
the dog has made it impossible for me not to. 

He was brought in among the last. It 
was very bad; gas and shrapnel. His leg 
was bleeding terribly from a cut artery. It 
seemed impossible to stop it. I was advised 
to wait a little before taking him to the hos- 
pital, as the shelling was intense ; but seeing 
he would die from loss of blood if I waited, 
I of course did what any one else would do. 

In a jifFy we had him in the car and I went 

like hell. The road was well lit by star 

shells. I put on the accelerator and flew, 

and in twenty-four minutes he was on the 

37 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

table, his artery tied and they thought he 
would live. 

I saw him a few days afterward and he 
said : " My business is gone, my brothers 
are killed and I have nothing to give you." 
Then he took the chain off a chair and 
handed me his dog, who had never left him, 
who was at Verdun, the Marne, the Meuse 
and the Somme. I nearly choked, thanked 
him and refused to accept the gift. 

" Here," he said, pointing to the new 
Cross of War on his breast, " that is mine. 
He is yours. I know all about what you did, 
my comrade." I went out. 

The attack was over. Hundreds of 
wounded, dying and dead; artillery which 
had never ceased; mud, blood and cold. 
One's heart is wrung by the stoicism and 
the heroism of these splendid French. 



38 



PART III 

A FEW days afterward Gen. Petain came 
out to review Gen. Dauvin's division, 
which was now en repos. We were in the lit- 
tle town of Nesle and they were refilling the 
ranks of the division. 

There is a great deal of misstatement 
about the time men are in the trenches; in 
fact, any one who has a friend at the front 
always speaks of him as being in the trenches, 
when as a matter of fact he may not be there 
at all. 

A division goes up and attacks. It loses 
artillery, men, officers, stretcher bearers, 
cooks, sergeants, gas men, hand grenade 
throwers, &c. When the attack is completed 
and it has done its task that division is re- 
placed by another fresh divison, which goes 
39 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

in and takes the place of the first in the 
trenches. The division which has made the 
attack goes back several miles from the line 
and there proceeds to refill the gaps. This 
takes sometimes two or three months. It all 
depends on what the losses have been. 

During this time the soldier has little to 
do, and if in a year he is in more than three 
attacks he is doing more than most of the 
army. The time he usually spends in the 
trenches is from twenty to thirty days at a 
time, so that in twelve months he would not 
be actually in the trenches over seventy days. 

It was a beautiful, sunlit Sunday after- 
noon in September. The remnants of the 
band were playing in the square and Gen. 
Dauvin was going among his soldiers. 
There is a wonderful comradeship between 
the French officer and the soldier and little 
line of discrimination is drawn. An officer 
does not hesitate to offer a soldier a 
cigarette and stand and talk to him, so that 
40 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

the French army is really like one great 
family. When the officer calls upon the sol- 
dier to do something the order is executed 
with the greatest spirit of enthusiasm. 

There have been other armies in which 
officers have been extremely overbearing, and 
I am told there have been instances in which 
a great many officers have been killed by the 
enemy — and otherwise ; but this state of 
things has never existed in the French army. 
The new American army officer may be very 
prone to feel his authority, and if such cases 
develop the sooner the new officer realizes that 
the soldier is more important than himself 
the sooner he will have a force willing to 
fight with him and under him. 

The Division then moved to Neuilly St. 
Front and one afternoon Gen. Petain drove 
up into the square with an aide, followed by 
two empty cars. The French commanding 
General is always followed by two other cars, 
so in case anything happens he can immedi- 
41 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

ately get from one into another. It is a jail 
sentence for a chauffeur if his car fails owing 
to his direct negligence. 

Another rule along this same line is that 
if a soldier is hit by a bomb dropped from 
a German airplane and wounded, after he 
comes out of the hospital he is then sentenced 
to fifteen days in jail. This may seem cu- 
rious, but of course it is a very wise pro- 
vision, since if a German airplane is circling 
around overhead and a man is fool enough 
to stand out in the open looking at it, when 
there are shelters to get into, and he is hit 
by an airplane bomb, he is necessarily in- 
capacitated for no good reason. It used to 
be common at the beginning of the war for 
a great crowd of men to stand out watching 
an airplane fight and for a number of them to 
be struck and put out of business for the time 
being. 

A short while before this near the front I 
was standing in a dugout while an aeroplane 
42 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

battle was going on, when a Frenchman went 
out past me and said he wanted to watch it. 
I told him that there was a great deal of 
shrapnel breaking, but he said, " Oh, that's 
nothing," and stood about twenty yards in 
front of me, I being perfectly protected and 
looking up at the fight. 

As he was about to speak a piece of shrap- 
nel about as big as a saucer simply cut his 
head off as he stood facing me, just as 
though an axe had done it. That cured me 
from ever watching an airplane battle with 
shrapnel breaking, unless it was part of my 
duty. 

It is rumored that Gen. Petain and Gen. 
Dauvin have arranged for an attack which we 
are to go into as soon as the division is able. 
We shall see. 

Some of us now had two days in Paris, 
and it was a joy to sit in a chair again be- 
fore a table with a tablecloth, a plate and a 
knife and fork. The situation in Paris had 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

become very interesting. The work of the 
secret services has been simply amazing. 
They have rounded up a great number of 
spies and practically cleaned up the city. 

There is a story that some American offi- 
cers who had met a few of the very attractive 
French girls (of the secret service) and had 
loosened their tongues were dumbfounded 
later to find out that what they said had been 
reported to Washington. Their mistake was 
natural, with a new army not understanding 
the conditions of this modern war, and it 
only took two or three instances of this kind 
to close everybody's mouth. 

We hear of terrible bread riots in Milan; 
that 1100 women and children were killed, 
and we hear that that was why a Milanese 
regiment on the front surrendered without fir- 
ing. The whole Second Italian Army, which, 
it is said, was made up of anarchists, social- 
ists and pro-German suggestion, surrendered 
without a shot being fired, and about 65,000 
44 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

of the Third Army did likewise. Brought 
about by German propaganda entirely. 
That situation, of course, has come out with 
the accusations against Caillaux, but the 
hand of Clemencau is so strong that he is 
sure to handle the situation for the benefit of 
the French people rightly and fearlessly. 

Gen. Pershing is lauded on all sides by the 
French and English ; his appointment was un- 
questionably^ a wise selection. 

We return to the front, this time to the 
Chemin des Dames, by motor. We arrive at 
Meaux, the scene of some of the hard fight- 
ing of the Battle of the Marne. Here are 
hundreds and hundreds of graves, all dec- 
orated with red, white and blue flags. The 
cathedral is magnificent ; only one gray tower 
is destroyed. 

I begin to realize now what the war ac- 
tually means to the individual soldier. It is 
not going out to the front that one minds. 
It is not the lack of good food. It is not 
45 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

the cold and the rain. It is not never sleep- 
ing in a bed. It is not that one is on duty 
twenty-four hours out of twenty-four, sub- 
ject to call at any time during the day or 
night. It is not the being hit with shrapnel. 
It is not the wound of the flesh. But it is the 
gnawing of one's heartstrings for the oiie one 
has left behind, the wife, the sweetheart, the 
mother, the sister. 

It is the longing for home, whether it is a 
shack on a side street, a room over an inn or 
a palace at Versailles. And the gnawing 
seems greater if home is across that great 
stretch of 3,000 miles infested with deep sea 
monsters seeking to destroy you. It is the 
longing for that place, whether it is iii the 
mountains of Vermont, the plains of Cali- 
fornia or the sweet, slumberous Southland. 

When within about five miles of the third 

line one sees all the woods on either side 

of the road piled with ammunition, and since 

the forests would hold no more the fields had 

46 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

great blocks of it, covered by canvas. This 
continued for miles and miles all the way 
up to the third liue. 

The two months' preparation for this at- 
tack at the Chemin des Dames cost in am- 
munition about one hundred million dollars, 
to be used in about ten days, when the bom- 
bardment was to begin. The feeling is in- 
describable, but it does make your heart beat 
a little bit faster as you look at these inani- 
mate, huge masses of ammunition and realize 
that soon they will be wending their way, 
smashing through German men, rocks and 
dugouts, doing their part in the deliverance 
of the world from this despotic demon. 

The Ambulance Corps was taken over by 
the American army. We were ordered in to 
Paris. It was with a feeling of real regret 
that I found myself again going in, as I 
knew the attack might come any day and I 
did want to be a part of it. 

My heart was really heavy and Paris 
47 



BATTERING THE EOCHE 

seemed heartless and dull, but I had deter- 
mined from the moment that we were ordered 
to Paris to make every effort personally to 
get out again. The town seemed filled with 
Americans. There were many who had been 
to the front (of the Ritz hotel) and many 
who, when they got to the front, were going 
to Berlin. How little they knew or know of 
*' the mole route." 

I met a woman who had charge of one of 
the best hospital units at the front (not of 
the Ritz). She told me rather an amusing 
incident of a very pretty young French girl 
who came out to see her boy and was met by 
my friend in the doorway. 

My friend asked the girl what she wanted. 
She replied that she had come to see Lieut. 
So-and-So, who was wounded. My friend 
replied, " You know we don't admit peo- 
ple here generally. You must have some 
reason to see him," The girl smiled quite 
cordially and replied : '' I have a very good 
48 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

reason. I am his sister." Whereupon my 
friend, also smiling, replied : " Really ! I am 
so glad to meet you, because I am his 
mother." 

The girl became frightfully embarrassed, 
but my friend simply said, " Oh, that 's all 
right; you can go in and see him." 

On my arrival in Paris I at once went to 
Col. Kean, the head of the new service, and 
volunteered my services with the new, green 
American Ambulance Corps. After some 
time and with the consent of the French I 
received my paper to go again to the front. 
I went in rather a curious capacity; that is, 
I was attached to and fed by the American 
army and was attached to and paid by the 
French army. 

It was on the morning of October 23, 
1917, at six o'clock that I tucked myself in 
a first class compartment on the train bound 
for Mont Notre Dame or Braisne, where I 
knew the Twenty-first Division was, as I had 
49 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

only left it a few days before. My feelings 
were very mixed as the jiggly train mean- 
dered along. 

Paris, with its warm bed and hot water 
and many conveniences and good food and 
my dog, seemed better each mile that the 
comic engine drew me nearer to the scene 
of what was to be one of the greatest battles 
of the war. A feeling of great solitude came 
over me. Here was I going out to forty 
green strangers alone and was not sure that 
they were at Braisne or that I could possibly 
find them before nightfall. 

The cold and wet and the ghastly sights I 
had passed through loomed up in my vision 
and Paris seemed good. Yet when I thought 
that I alone of the ambulance men of the 
Norton-Harjes and American Field Service, 
that I alone, was allowed to go to the front to 
assist these green men, a warm feeling of, 
perhaps, shall I say pride circled about my 
60 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

heart and I was glad I was bound for the 
front. 

The train was in no hurry, so I arrived at 
Fere-en-Tardenois four hours late, and at 
two o'clock went up to a cafe and attempted 
to get lunch. Being a stranger I had to go 
before a commissioner in order to take out a 
card so that I could get some lunch. This is 
true Hooverism. 

Another leisurely train came along about 
S:30, after I had been standing for an hour 
in the drizzling rain, but it had made up its 
mind not to go to Braisne, but to Mont 
Notre Dame, which was about eight kilo- 
meters from where I thought the division was. 
As it was the only train which was going to 
the front for twenty-four hours, I piled in 
and arrived at Braisne just fourteen hours 
late. 

I got out in a perfect sea of mud and a 
driving rain storm with my duffle bag and a 
51 



BATTERINiS THE BOCHE 

blanket roll. Not a soul was in sight but an 
old man who had a small pushcart. I offered 
him five francs to push my things over to 
Braisne, and he characteristically replied 
that if I gave him the five francs I could 
push them over myself; which I did. 

It was now dark and the rain and mud 
were inches deep. You could only see a few 
feet ahead. At the turn by the hospital a 
camion ran into a staff car and the car 
looked like an egg that some one had sat 
upon. 

On I went, pushing the horrible little cart, 
the man on the other side being more of a 
drag than a help. At last we reached the 
little hospital at Braisne, by a lovely stream, 
and I went in through the courtyard and 
asked an old friend there to telephone for a 
car for an American. 

When I came out all my stuff had been 
thrown on the ground in the rain. So I 
gave the man five francs and lay down close 
52 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

to the wall, resting my head on mj duffle bag, 
I was too tired to care whether it was raining 
or snowing or the moon was out; but I did 
think the sky was ominous, for it was dark, 
lowering, foreboding; the rain had just 
ceased. I was asleep in two minutes. Then 
I heard " Whizz — e — e," far over my head, 
and, believe me, I sat up like a shot, went in 
and said, " That was a Boche shell — or was 
I dreaming? " 

" Oh, you 're not dreaming," said my 
friend. " They dropped several notes a few 
days ago that they were going to shell 
Braisne to-night." So I had arrived just in 
time for the shelling party. 

I went out into the courtyard and sat 
down. There was n't room inside, as the 
room was filled with a line of soldiers who 
had been affected by mustard gas, which 
is n't very serious, in their eyes and they 
were all crying like babies at a party. In 
fact, sitting as they did in a row, with their 
53 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

eyes streaming, waiting to be treated, they 
struck me as a band of mourners who had all 
been left money. 

Shells now came over every ten minutes, 
but they were high up in the air and nothing 
to concern one. In about an hour a ram- 
pant Ford car drew into the yard and Earl 
Bibb, a very attractive young Southerner, 
got out, and appeared greatly excited. He 
saw me lying across my duffle bag and 
wanted to know where I was wounded. I 
told him nowhere that I knew of, that I 
simply wanted to join the division. 

He was very much amused and said the 
boys were all 4;hrilled ; that a message had 
come to send a car at once to Braisne with 
an ambulance for an American, and he sup- 
posed I was the first American wounded in 
the war. I was glad to disappoint him. 

We piled my things in and soon we had 
reached the camp. I had been travelling 
about eighteen hours and of course had had 
54 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

little to eat or drink. I was informed that 
the attack was to begin the next morning 
and I felt happy that I should be there in 
time for it. 

There was no place for me to sleep, but I 
spied a big Fiat car which was broken down 
in a field. I went over, opened the back, and 
— joy! — it was empty. So I threw my 
things in — I did n't see them again for five 
days afterward — got a cup of coffee, and at 
once went to work. 



55 



PART IV 

THE evacuation hospital near Braisne 
held about 1,800 men at one time and 
was made of canvas, the wounded being 
put on the ground on stretchers. There 
was a small bar where four separate di- 
visions contributed coffee, hard boiled eggs, 
sandwiches of cheese, and champagne, free. 
Of course they were only for the wounded 
and those working in the hospital. 

Here again the French were wonder- 
ful. No man took even a slice of bread 
unless he was really hungry, and then 
ate very sparingly, and I was shocked to 
see one — thank heaven, only one — Amer- 
ican eat sandwich after sandwich after hav- 
ing had a full supper at six o'clock — and 
these wounded men taking simply a bite or a 
56 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

swallow, though some of them had not had 
anything to eat all day. 

The wounded began to arrive in a line of 
automobiles stretching for a mile and a half 
along the road. It was a stupendous attack 
and a big job was on. The cold got under 
my skin, for I was outside most of the time. 

The wounded now came in so fast that 
finally there was not room for one more 
stretcher in the hospital and the last arrivals 
had to stay in the cars on the road until some 
of the patients could be removed to other 
base hospitals. Yet this hospital covered an 
area equal to that of the lower floor of the 
Biltmore Hotel. I noticed that nothing but 
Colonials came in — Senegalese, Zouaves, 
Moroccans, Algerians, Chasseurs. 

It was now about six o'clock in the morn- 
ing of October M, 1917. The smell, the 
stench of blood, the tiny stoves bringing it 
out, was overpowering and the surgeons were 
literally dripping. I talked to the one 
57 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

youngster who was shot in the head. He 
said the attack was going splendidly. He 
was one of the first over the top. It 
was launched about midnight, following 
a terrific tir de barrage which had been 
going on for eleven days and nights and 
which had used up about $100,000,000 worth 
of ammunition. 

With star shells illuminating their path the 
Negroes, Zouaves and Algerians, armed with 
hand grenades and long knives only, went 
over and kept going over in wave after wave. 
The Boches could not stand the thousands of 
knives glittering in the star shell light and 
they gave way. The first trench was taken 
and the Chasseurs came over, followed by the 
Zouaves. 

The French lieutenants then rounded up 
the Senegalese, who took advantage of many 
opportunities to dodge the bullets from Ger- 
man rapid fire guns by hiding in shell holes. 
The officers simply gave them a kick and said, 
58 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

" Get up and go on," and if the Negroes did 
not obey they, of course, would threaten to 
shoot them, but the order was usually suffi- 
cient. Throat after throat was slit from ear 
to ear by these expert Southern troops. The 
Boches don't like this kind of fighting and fell 
back over the Chemin des Dames, up to the 
Fort of Malmaison, where they had their big 
guns. 

Cowardly methods with the Germans have 
become part of their present warfare, so 
many Boches have feigned to be wounded or 
shouted " Kamerad ! " with both hands up, 
only to stab their captor from behind as soon 
as his back was turned. This piece of treach- 
ery accomplished, they lie down again, await- 
ing the next victim. So these Senegalese, 
who are marvellous with the knife, cut the 
throat. It is the only safe method. 

The Zouaves, Chasseurs and Senegalese do 
not like to take prisoners in any event. 
They have suffered too much from the 
59 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

" Kamerad " trick. There was a case in 
which a whole regiment of Boches were taken 
prisoners with their hands up. Then sud- 
denly, at a signal, they all lay down on the 
ground, and behind them a section of rapid 
fire German guns got into action and simply 
laid 900 French Chasseurs dead on the 
ground. The " prisoners " then retreated. 
One great feature of the French tem- 
perament is this : having seen about 4200 
wounded, I have never noticed the slightest 
indication or suggestion of a desire that one 
wounded man be moved or taken care of be- 
fore another. One man who was lying within 
an inch or two of another — they were all like 
sardines on the ground — uttered a groan 
and I went over and gave him a drink. His 
stomach was practically shot away and he 
was in great pain. But not by even the rais- 
ing of an eyelash did he indicate a wish to be 
treated befor.e the youngster who lay near 
him, who simply had his hand injured. 
60 




u 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

Others lay for half an hour soaking their 
stretchers with blood, but never a whimper, 
never a word from them; all were silent in 
their suffering. And they had been through 
a great trial. I must give you an idea of 
how long it takes a man who has been 
wounded to get to a hospital. 

He is wounded on the field, say, at twelve 
o'clock. He is brought in by the stretcher 
bearers at 12 :30 to the third line. He waits 
his turn, about fifteen minutes ; then he is 
taken to a poste de secours; then put into the 
ambulance about fifteen minutes later; then 
driven to a field hospital, a trip which takes 
from half to three-quarters of an hour. 
Then he waits from fifteen minutes to one 
hour for his turn ; is carried into the hospital 
and again waits his turn, not less than fifteen 
minutes; then is transferred into another 
ambulance for a trip of several kilometers 
to a base hospital — traffic frightfully con- 
gested, time allowed from half to three-quar- 
61 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

ters of an hour. In other words, during an 
attack of this nature a man was lucky if he 
reached a base hospital within three and a 
half hours after he was wounded. 

Now the German wounded began to come 
in, all boys of from seventeen to twenty. I 
must have seen about 150 of them and I saw 
not one who looked over twenty. I talked 
with a number of them in French and in Eng- 
lish. They were brought in with the French 
wounded, in the same ambulances, and there 
was no discrimination in the treatment of the 
French and of the Germans. 

A boy of seventeen who was shot in the 
head told me he had not tasted food or drink 
for four days; had not even had any water. 
I got him some. He had no shoes or stock- 
ings or underwear, just his coat and breeches, 
which were soaked through with rain, mud 
and blood. A French stretcher bearer out- 
fitted him. 

He said the French artillery was terrible; 
62 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

he could not get away from it. It was 
everywhere. Their roads had been and were 
being shelled so that no food could be brought 
up to the soldiers and he was glad when he 
was wounded and taken by the French. 

I asked him how he happened to get over 
with us, and he replied that the last thing he 
saw was four stretcher bearers carrying a 
German, when a shell burst and killed all five 
of them.' He then decided it was safer over 
on the French lines and he had crawled over. 
This was the first time he had ever been under 
fire. 

The French treat these wounded Germans, 
who have killed their fathers and brothers 
and left French mothers and sisters and 
widows roofless, just as they treat their own 
wounded. Just as gently they carry them 
and cover them with blankets and give them 
food and warm drink; while we are told the 
Boches starve, mutilate, inoculate with dis- 
ease, torture for information, the gallant 
63 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

Frenchmen thej capture. What a lesson the 
Christ has taught these French people ! 

At this time I had no special duty. I was 
there to help in any capacity possible. The 
road was now filled with assis (men who 
have been wounded, but still can walk), with 
fractured arms, wounded heads and hands or 
other comparatively slight wounds ; hundreds 
of them, a stream of humanity, dripping with 
blood, seeking aid. And not a single mur- 
mur, not a single complaint. Many I helped 
into the hospital, through the driving rain 
and mud, whose feet were frozen or numb 
from the wet and cold. It seemed so curious, 
in a way, to go up to one of these fellows, a 
black Algerian, covered with mud, who had 
fallen or slipped down and help him up 
and have him put his arm over your shoul- 
der, while you assisted him to go where there 
was succor, though at the moment one only 
thought of him as one of your own. 
64 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

A young South African came up the road 
with a bandage around his head and a 
spot of red over his right eye about the size 
of a silver dollar. He was a very fine type. 
He stopped and asked me for a cigarette. 
He said that along the whole battle front 
the Germans were retreating precipitately 
over the Oise-Aisne canal; that the French 
had captured the fortified village of Pinon to 
the left ,of and far above the Fort of Mal- 
maison; that the whole forest of Pinon was 
now in French hands; that the Boches were 
in full retreat. 

It was now 1 a. m., October 25. Many 
Senegalese walked in with frozen feet to sit 
around the tiny stove. The rain now turned 
into sleet. The wind was cold and they do 
not stand cold well — nor do I. The stove 
was only about ten inches in diameter, and 
the odor arising from overheated boots, 
unwashed bodies, mud soaked clothes and 
65 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

dried blood was almost unbearable. Despite 
that we crowded around the stove. It was 
at least warm. 

My South African acquaintance said: 
" I went over the top at ten o'clock this 
morning. It was very hard going, as the 
mud was too slippery to afford a footing, 
but we managed to get out and at them, 
using mitrailleuses, hand grenades and 
knives, and we put them on the run. Our 
tir de barrage had simply slaughtered 
them." 

Carrier pigeons now came back and 
brought the news that the French had cap- 
tured the high tower of Pinon, which was two 
and a half miles from their starting point, 
together with about 5,000 prisoners and 
seventy-five cannon. 

We were now moved nearer the front with 

two posfe de secours. Near one called 

Bascule, about half a mile from the 

third line, we found a great number of dead 

66 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

piled up in the road — horses and men. 
Some of the bodies had to be pulled off the 
road in order to make it clear for traffic. 
Besides the bodies, that were lying stretched 
in different positions, some with their heads 
shot off, some with their chests torn and 
ripped open, I saw two mounds of dead 
Chasseurs at Ferme Hemeret, about fifteen 
or twenty in each mound, one body piled 
on top 6f the other. 

Some lay as if in slumber; the faces of 
others were contorted by the great agony 
they had passed though ; others were in most 
grotesque positions. One had fallen astride 
of four other comrades and with his helmet 
on looked for all the world as if he was 
playing horse. 

One could see a long line of men winding 
their way from the front to this place, and 
each two carried one who had given his life 
that France might gain this great and glor- 
ious victory. This procession of the dead 
67 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

wound its way toward us silently and slowly 
from as far as one could see. 

The poste at Ferme Hemeret lies in a very 
beautiful valley. To the right is a grotto 
which is simply extraordinary for its size. 
To the left the chateau with its barns and 
stables nestled against the hill, while through 
the valley a gentle stream winds its way 
from the hills above, the water, once clear 
and dancing in the sunlight, now murky with 
blood of many peoples. 

The glorious chateau had not one stone 
left upon the other. Back of the piles of 
rubbish were our 155s, blazing away their 
message of death to the Boches. In front, 
on the other side of the road, were the 75s 
doing the same work. The trees were 
scorched and the grass was seared from Ger- 
man shells. 

I called it in my imagination the Valley of 
Desolation, and as I went along the road and 
thought of the happiness which had once 
68 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

been there, and the sadness and sorrows which 
had entered in, I seemed to forget for the 
moment where I was, till a Boche shell struck 
on the bank just above me, throwing dirt over 
my headi I then knew well and ran into the 
abri (dugout). 

The bombardment had been so terrific that 
the Fort of Malmaison, which had been held 
for two years, was literally razed to the 
ground^ Over 3300 dead bodies were found 
smashed and torn by the artillery a long 
time before the advance began. Most of 
them were pitched forward on their heads, 
owing to the terrible concussion from above, 
and the great majority had deep head 
wounds. After the Senegalese, Zouaves and 
Chasseurs went over they sent hurriedly 
across the River Styx 8,000 more. 

The detail of the method of attack is in- 
tensely interesting. The Allied line stretches 
from the coast to Switzerland. Of this the 
French hold about two-thirds and the English 
69 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

about one-third. A commentary on the 
French soldier is that the English have 
double the number of troops on their line 
that the French have in relative distance. 
The English are now extending their line. 

The method of the French attack in detail 
is as follows: The attacking divison is 
brought up to within four or five kilometers 
of the third line, where it rests and prepares 
for the attack. Its ammunition and artil- 
lery wagons are going all night, bringing up 
artillery and ammunition. This takes a pe- 
riod of from one month to two months. 

About a week before the attack — which 
was on October 23, at the Chemin des Dames 
— two holding divisions are sent up to the 
lines and they replace the division which has 
been there. They occupy the first and sec- 
ond line trenches. They are composed of 
what one would call " regular " soldiers. 

The third line is then occupied by the at- 
tacking troops, made up of the Moroccans, 
70 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

Algerians, Chasseurs and Zouaves. These 
colonial troops do not like barrage fire and 
they are therefore not put up to the front 
line until the night before they go over the 
top. They are men particularly high strung 
and temperamental, and are supposed to be 
really only good for attacking; but no sol- 
diers are better in this capacity. 

After the two holding divisons and the 
colonial troops are in the first three lines 
their ammunition and guns are also brought 
up closer to the lines. This takes about an- 
other week. Of course every one is pitched 
to the highest key and there was practically 
no sleep before this last attack, since there 
was a constant tir de barrage from the 
French guns, and when one lay down in the 
dugouts the earth simply throbbed with the 
reverberation. 

On the night of October 23 the first hold- 
ing and second holding divisions came back 
and occupied trenches two and three and the 
71 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

attacking colonial troops went up during the 
night and occupied the first line trench. In 
the morning they are given a teaspoonful of 
brandy, some bread and coffee, and as dawn 
comes they pull down the gates and go out 
over the top into the faces of the enemy rapid 
fire guns, hand grenades and shrapnel. 

*' Going over the top " has been written 
and talked so much about by those who have 
seen an attack from the front of the Hotel 
Ritz that I am sure the detail of it cannot 
fail to be of intense interest. Along the 
whole French front we have wire entangle- 
ments. These consist of posts driven into 
the ground in pairs in the shape of an X, 
and innumerable strands of barbed wire 
stretched from the top of one pair of posts to 
the bottom of the next and back and forth 
across the space between the posts until there 
is almost a solid barricade of wire. 

At intervals of about forty or fifty yards, 
sometimes less, are what we call the gates. 
72 




Observer near Malmaison, Chemin des Dames, 
to right is firing 



Soldier 




Just before firing a small gun from the second-line trench, 
Chemin des Dames 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

These are made of iron, with wire stretched 
across them at exactly the same height as the 
ordinary wire, but they are fastened to the 
solid posts by a single strand of wire. The 
gates are changed every night along the 
whole French front, so that in attacking the 
Boches cannot tell exactly where the gates 
are and where to train their rapid fire guns. 
As every single gate is changed every single 
night you can see that in itself it is a big j ob. 

An incident of this: A man who was in 
charge of changing the gates in a certain 
sector went out about October 19, but did 
not come back for about three hours. It was 
thought that he took a long while for the 
work, so the next night when he went out to 
change his gates they sent several men out 
about half an hour after he had gone. Not 
finding him, they moved the gates and put in 
the solid wire. 

About two hours after that they heard a 
rustling in the wire and put up a star shell. 
73 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

Seeing him in the wire, some one hit him with 
a hand grenade, tearing open his shoulder. 
Then he was dragged in again. 

It appears that for the two years he had 
been on duty changing the gates he had made 
a practice of going over directly to the Ger- 
man lines, telling the Germans where the 
French artillery was and about how much 
infantry was present, and about when they 
expected to attack ; giving them, in fact, all 
the information that he had. He confessed 
this, hoping they would spare his life. When 
he got through some one cut his throat with 
an Algerian knife and his body was cast 
aside. Five more were caught doing this. 



74^ 



PART V 

IT is now the night of the 23d of October. 
The Moroccans are in the front line 
trench, with the Chasseurs and Zouaves and 
Senegalese. They have had their brandy, 
their coffee. A faint shadow of dawn is com- 
ing over the trenches from the east. The 
signal is about to be given. The great guns 
are simply blotting out the German trenches 
and the Fort of Malmaison, dealing death 
and destruction, and the small 75s are play- 
ing a curtain of fire into the front line trench 
of the Germans. 

A cable with a hook at the end is used for 
pulling down the iron gates. It was sug- 
gested that after the Senegalese had pulled 
down the gates and had gone out and over and 
through them, the Zouaves, who came along 
75 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

behind, should pick up these same cables and 
carry them over to the German wire entangle- 
ments and attach them to the posts and 
wire. The other end of the cables, it was 
proposed, should be attached to tractors in 
the rear which would draw in the cables and 
thus pull down the Germans wire barriers 
handily. 

It is about 4 :30 in the morning. 

The signal is given; they throw out the 
cables all along the line and attach them to 
the iron gates. Another signal, the gates 
all come down and with fiendish yells the wild 
Senegalese rush out over the top, through 
the gates and toward the German front line 
trench with their knives in the air. 

Many are mown down, but the others keep 
going, wave after wave, toward the German 
trenches. So enthusiastic are they and so 
protected do they feel themselves by the mar- 
velous French artillery, which plays a perfect 
stream of shells as from a hose in front of 
76 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

them, that many of them vault over the 
German wire into the first German trench, 
cutting, slashing their way through. 

Back of them come the Chasseurs, carry- 
ing the cables which had been used for the 
gates. These they attach to the German 
wire. At a given signal the tractors start 
their engines which begin to wind up the 
cables, and they pull the whole German wire 
barrier down. This brings forth the great- 
est excitement and enthusiasm, as the Chas- 
seurs and Zouaves are on top of the Germans 
long before the Boches have any idea they 
could be there. In consequence there is 
nothing but hand to hand fighting. 

The Germans retreated from the first line, 
second line and third line, and finally gave 
up the Port of Malmaison and retreated 
over the Oise-Aisne Canal, some five kilo- 
meters from the front French line. They re- 
treated in disorder, one might say an absolute 
rout. And it was not because they did 
77 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

not know and were not cognizant of the 
coming attack, for besides the spies who 
had told them, there were a great many 
other means by which they knew almost 
the hour that the attack was to begin, 
and they had been preparing for it for a 
month. They simply could not stand the 
terrific onslaught. 

The Chasseurs with their bayonets, liquid 
grenades and hand grenades worked terrific 
havoc with the Boches. The French artillery 
was simply playing a sheet of fire on their ar- 
tillery. Seven hundred of their big guns had 
been destroyed and 300 of their smaller guns. 

The roads back of their lines were simply 
churned with the French artillery, so that no 
food had been brought up to them for five 
days and the wounded could not be taken 
away, but lay where they were for the reason 
that no ambulances could come up and most 
of the stretcher-bearers had been killed. For 
miles, from the twenty-third to the twenty- 
78 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

sixth of October, there was nothing but a sea 
of blood and mud and foul stench, and the 
horrors of the situation were increased by the 
ceaseless belching of the French artillery and 
the cries of the Boches whose throats were 
being slit and whose heads were being nearly 
cut off by the Senegalese with their terrific 
knives. 

On and on the Germans retreated, further 
and further back over the Ailette River, giv- 
ing up the forest of Pinon, and at last, after 
having held for two years with the cream of 
the German army this the nearest point to 
Paris, they found themselves totally routed 
and defeated, and this wonderful French 
division found itself in possession of the en- 
tire Aisne plateau, the Fort of Malmaison 
and within six kilometers of the city of Laon, 
which they will take soon. The Boches lost 
entire control of the whole of the Chemin des 
Dames. 

When one considers the thousands and 
79 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

thousands of lives that have been lost over the 
Chemin des Dames one can only say, " Well, 
wouldn't you know the Ladies' Way would be 
hardest fought over ! " Incidentally, years 
and years ago there were two young men 
very much in love with two lovely ladies. 
The parents of the ladies objected to the 
youths, who were rather dashing and gay, 
and refused to let them come over the regular 
road to see their sweethearts. Whereupon 
the youths, being rich and in love, had the 
Chemin des Dames, the Ladies' Way, built 
for their special use in order that they might 
go and see the young ladies. So much for 
the Chemin des Dames. 

On October S8 the prisoners came in in 
droves and were at once put to work on the 
roads, though there is some sort of under- 
standing that a prisoner is not to be taken 
within so many kilometers of the firing line ; 
that is, he is not to be in danger. The 
French, of course, follow this agreement out 
80 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

practically to the letter, except that it is dif- 
ficult sometimes to draw the line of where 
danger is. It may be at the front line, it 
may be where the roads are in bad shape at 
the third line, or it may be five miles back on 
account of shrapnel. Therefore in handling 
prisoners one has to use one's judgment as to 
where the safest place is to put them at work 
on the roads. An instance of this : 

A yoxHig French lieutenant that I knew 
had gone over the top to rout the Senegalese 
out of shell holes in no man's land, a duty 
which has already been described. He was 
out two days and two nights and finally came 
back to the dugout with a very untidy looking 
bandage around his head. " Where did you 
get that ? " he was asked. 

" Well, it 's the damndest luck. Here I 
have been out two days and two nights under 
direct rapid gun fire and hand grenades and 
not a scratch, and just as I was walking back 
here, my job finished, and was standing 
81 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

within an eighth of a mile of the dugout roll- 
ing a cigarette, a piece of shrapnel comes 
along and cuts my head open." 

So you are only under fire when you are 
hit; at least that's the way I figure it out. 
We bandaged his head and the surgeon said 
he would be all right in two or three weeks. 
Such is the luck of being under fire. 

There are nineteen modes of communica- 
tion between the French aviators and the 
French artillery. In sending messages from 
the attacking front line troops to the Gen- 
eral Staff dugout pigeons are generally used. 
These are carried by Senegalese with notes 
attached to them and all with certain marks 
on their legs. They are sent back a few 
minutes after the attack is started, telling at 
once that the outlook is favorable and that 
the Boches are retreating, or that it is un- 
favorable and they need more troops, or that 
they do not need any help, or to bring up 
82 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

more troops, as they are going to take the 
next trench, &c. 

These blessed birds are nearly a sure mode 
of communication. They are seldom hit, 
they fly with tremendous rapidity, they go at 
once on their errand and they do not stop 
to read a dime novel. They are swift and 
sure. 

Pigeons are also released from the air- 
planes which are making observations. One 
of the best means of communication in a 
rapid attack — it was used at the Chemin des 
Dames — between the aviator and the artil- 
lery, is simply a strip of white cloth, which 
is laid on the ground where it can be ob- 
served by the aviator. The messages are 
sent by folding and unfolding the cloth 
rapidly. The signal repeated twice might 
direct the aviator to fly over a certain area ; 
once, to return; three times, that he was in 
the right position. This, of course, is a very 
83 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

^ood mode of communication, as it cannot 
possibly be seen by the enemy. The other 
modes of communication I do not feel myself 
at liberty to speak of. 

When the French reached Malmaison they 
found an enormous quantity of German hel- 
mets, not only of those of the dead who had 
been crushed by the bombardment, but oth- 
ers evidently left behind by Boches who had 
simply fled. While this was the explanation 
of their presence in many instances, yet the 
engineers discovered that in a great many of 
the helmets were time bombs. Most of them 
were extinct, though a few went off and 
killed perhaps half a dozen French soldiers. 
This is a very good method of placing 
bombs, as a helmet thrown over in the mud 
is n't usually an object of suspicion. 

So extraordinarily rapid was the French 

advance that up at Malmaison in one of the 

dugouts, which the Boches had deserted only 

about five hours before, there was one man 

84 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

who had been killed by a piece of shrapnel 
leaning over a table, gripping a telephone 
instrument. They had literally to break his 
fingers to get the instrument, which I have* 
He was evidently telephoning when killed. 

The wounded were now being brought 
back, French and Boche, and there was prac- 
tically no road left, it had been so torn up 
by shells ; on both sides and in the road 
were dead men and horses. The advance of 
the gallant French was so rapid that they 
did not have time to bury their dead. 

October 28 was rainy, dark and cold, and I 
was assisting young Mr. Bibb, who had 
never driven at the front before, over this 
road from the trenches. What occurred on 
one trip was afterward told by a wounded 
Frenchman who understood the situation, 
and who spoke English. He said : 

" It was so dark, the mud so deep and the 
road so full of shell holes that Mr. Gibson 
walked slowly in front of the car guiding 
85 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

its direction. One had to feel one's way. 
He cleared the road as we proceeded. 
Finally he shouted above the screeching of 
breaking shrapnel shells : 

" ' We will have to wait a few minutes. 
The road is blocked above. We are in a bad 
place, the Boches are shelling like hell, but 
keep your engine running and your shirt on 
and I will get you out all right.' 

" He started up the road with shrapnel 
bursting ahead of him. Suddenly he went 
down in the mud, but was soon on his feet 
again and disappeared in the darkness. It 
was not until some time after that I was 
told he was struck by shrapnel fire, a 
piece denting his helmet and knocking him 
down. He made no report of it, 

" Fifteen minutes went by and it looked as 
if he had ' got his ' when he appeared floun- 
dering through the mud, blood and slime and 
called out cheerily: 

" ' It 's all right, it 's clear, come along 
86 



BATTERINiG^ THE BOCHE 

behind me and you will soon be in good hands, 
mon vieuxJ' 

*' In half an hour we were at the hospital." 

It was a privilege to have been with Earl 
Bibb; though only a youngster, he was cool 
and calm under the heaviest enemy shell fire 
it has been my misfortune to ever witness. 

On the morning of the twenty-ninth of Oc- 
tober the Boches sent over in the neighbor- 
hood of sixty-four airplanes, including a 
number of small, fast flying 'planes, and 
about twenty-five battle 'planes. To the left 
of Fort Malmaison and near a battery of 
75s was a small mound on which was camou- 
flaged with tiny branches of trees an anti- 
aircraft gun. I went up there during the 
morjiing. 

As the Boches were sending over so many 
'planes it was necessary that the anti-aircraft 
guns be kept in active operation. An anti- 
aircraft gun is a very simple machine. The 
shells are fed in by one man and pulled 
87 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

through by another, and one kneels on the 
ground and sights at the airplanes that come 
over. It is curious how the god of war takes 
hold of one in many different ways. I felt 
no more qualm in calmly firing this gun at a 
human being whom I could see circling in the 
air above me than if I were shooting quail in 
South Carolina. 

The Germans kept constantly dropping 
small air bombs, but they did not come near 
enough to bother us very much, the closest 
being about a hundred yards away. I went 
over and picked it up and brought it home 
with me. It did not even go off. 

The moral effect of the anti-aircraft gun 
is splendid. Seldom does one hit an aviator 
or even the machine, but the rattle and sharp 
crack of the gun keeps the aviator from com- 
ing down too low, from taking many pictures 
and from exposing himself to the fire more 
than he can help. It is a great, great pro- 
tection, and there are thousands of them from 
88 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

the front line all the way back to Paris. 

It was not long after this that the division 
at the first line was replaced by another 
division and we went en repos at a lovely little 
village near Soissons, where the work of re- 
fitting the division began. The day before I 
went to Paris was one of the happiest days 
in my life, when, absolutely unexpectedly, I 
was given the Cross of War with the two 
citations, one referring to the fighting at 
St. Quentin and one to the recent attack at 
iJie Chemin des Dames. 

Having seen over 4000 French wounded 
and talked with a great many hundreds of 
soldiers and several officers, I know first hand 
and directly the feeling of the French. It 
is while they are tired of the struggle, 
when an attack comes along they advance 
and hold what they gain. They have sacri- 
ficed the best blood of their country and they 
are sacrificing it to-day. The women have 
made great sacrifices in their turn and the 
89 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

spirit of the French soldier is now becoming 
that of the conqueror, no longer, as at first, 
that of the man only doing his best to save 
his home. 

I have also talked with a number of Ger- 
man wounded prisoners within the last ten 
weeks and have seen several thousand pris- 
oners. The morale of the German is not 
what it was. He started out to be a con- 
queror ; now he is willing to do the best that 
he can to get out of it. He is simply hang- 
ing on. 

The Boche soldier knows that he is never 
going to Paris and he knows and realizes that 
he was once within ten miles of it and now he 
is eighty miles away from it, having been 
driven back and back, so that the spirit of 
the conqueror is dead. It is simply the spirit 
of tenacity that is animating the German 
army ; while the spirit of the French, who is 
the conqueror now, is growing stronger and 
stronger. 

90 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

Briefly, the ambition of the German soldier 
to-day and of Germany to-day is to survive. 
In the beginning it was to conquer. It is not 
possible that the German army will hold out 
another winter. 

During the past three months the French 
have made the greatest advances since the 
beginning of the war. They went out at 
Verdun eleven weeks ago, took Hill 304 and 
drove tl^e Germans back seven miles, making 
Verdun as safe as New York. At Chemin 
des Dames, from where I have just come, the 
Germans lost a complement of 50,000 men 
and an advance of ten kilometers on a fifteen 
kilometer front that was taken and held, and 
is held to-day, at the nearest point to Paris. 
This is the actual situation in the French 
and German armies. 

On arriving in Paris I found that the 

Americans themselves were very prone to 

criticise the Americans and each man wanted 

to have a higher commission than his neigh- 

91 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

bor. This same situation exists in America, 
and only the death of soldiers and officers 
will bring about a rational attitude in this 
regard. 

It is certain that there is too much criti- 
cism of the American by the American. We 
cannot all be generals, we cannot all have the 
privilege of shedding some or all of our blood 
for our country, but we can all do our part, 
and each part is as essential as any of the 
others. The girl who gives coffee to the 
soldier at the way station is doing her part, 
just as the man is in the trenches; it makes 
no difference what ones does if one does one's 
duty by oneself. 

It matters not if you be a soldier, farmer, 
officer, ambulance man, surgeon, diplomat, 
clerk. Senator, Representative, Jackie, ad- 
miral, stoker, wireless operator, mine layer, 
factory worker, trench digger. General, bal- 
loon observer, Y. M. C. A. worker, submarine 
pUot, engineer, gas man, grenade thrower or 
92 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

aviator, you are an integral part of a great 
human chain, and through the tears and 
blood that are to flow if you are an Ameri- 
can, you will strive to be of this chain its 
strongest link. 



PART VI 

THE writer has never been a student of 
economic conditions of nations, but has 
always been a close observer of men, and 
from the standpoint of the individual and 
collective soldier this war will not last 
a day beyond 1919. This deduction is not 
made because Italy will have no flour, 
London will be destroyed by air-craft, the 
United States cannot transport more men, or 
because Germany is broken by lack of food 
and internal dissensions, but it is based upon 
a first-hand knowledge of a certain number 
of the German army whom the writer has 
talked to personally under conditions which 
brought out the truth from the Hun and 
under which he was unable to camouflage 
his feelings. 

94< 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

We concede that the German emperor is 
no fool, and we realize that, while he made 
the greatest blunder that has occurred in 
any war at the Battle of the Marne, — a pos- 
sible exception being Napoleon's effort to 
cut through Wellington's line on that fatal 
Sunday, — he deserves all the credit that is 
due his military acumen. We also know 
that the greater his intelligence, the more he 
must realize that every day, nay, everj^ hour, 
that the war continues means a more de- 
graded and distasteful peace for the German 
autocracy. He knows full well to-night that 
his army on the western front is a defeated 
army ; that three years ago he had ^the great- 
est military organization in the world; that 
he had prepared to strike this blow for 
twenty-five years, and that he struck France 
as a brute would strike a gentle little girl; 
that he took the world unawares ; that he 
rushed through Belgium leaving a trail of 
tears and blood ; that he entered France and 
95 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

destroyed that country and her people to 
the gates of Paris, that he even ordered 
dinner for himself at the " Cafe de Paris " 
in Paris. 

But the spirit of France was not unlike 
the spirit of Christ. This child of faith and 
truth and right arose with the finger-marks 
of the beast upon her throat, her feet bleed- 
ing with many miles of retreat, her cheeks 
furrowed with the tears of her anguish, her 
breasts slashed by the merciless, lustful in- 
vader. She arose as if the hand of some 
unseen power had given her strength. She 
grappled with the demon, and he who had 
allowed his horses and guns and men to walk 
and be dragged over the bodies of babies, 
the conquering soldier of the world, found 
himself in a death-grip with this totally 
changed adversary. As the grip of France 
tightened upon the throat of the heinous 
Hun, the moral courage of the German 
soldier waned, and he who was to dine in 
96 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

Paris the next day is still dining in Ber- 
lin. The soldier who was sent to pave the 
way through rivers of blood, in order that 
the emperor might taste of French cooking, 
is not at the gates of Paris to-night, but is 
between eighty and one hundred miles from 
them. Why? Because the French army is 
superior to the German army, because the 
French army has proven that it is superior. 

When the Austrians suggested the use of 
great guns to the Germans, the latter pooh- 
poohed the idea, but a curious commentary 
on the Battle of the Mame is that the very 
guns which prevented the German army from 
being cut to pieces and entirely annihilated 
and destroyed, being immobile, hindered the 
Germans from taking Paris. In addition, 
the guns which in a measure prevented the 
kaiser from taking Paris, in turn saved the 
German army. 

The writer has talked with a number of 
men who were in the Battle of the Marne. 
97 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

It is ancient history, so will I only refer to 
it briefly and perhaps throw an intimate 
side-light which came to me first-hand. I 
quote from memory what was told me by 
Lieutenant de Rose of the French army. 

" The big Austrian guns paved the way 
through Belgium to Verdun. Realizing that 
Verdun was no more able to withstand 
the Austrian guns than the Belgian forts, 
we rushed out our big guns far in advance 
of Verdun, so that when the Germans came 
there they were unable to shell Verdun as 
they had anticipated. Consequently, being 
held at Verdun, they attacked on the right 
flank, presuming that our line there was very 
weak. But fortunately we had a great part 
of the Sixth Army on our left flank, so 
that when they attacked there they were 
flanked by the Sixth Army and the English. 
They then began to draw reinforcements 
from the center to help their right flank, 
until their line became thinned at this pivotal 
98 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

point. It was then that the genius of Gen- 
eral Foch showed itself, for he ordered us 
to cut through the German center. This 
we did, dividing the entire attacking German 
army. It was then that the Grermans had 
to withdraw and re-form, and when they re- 
treated precipitately they found themselves 
running back to- their own big guns, which 
they were unable to bring up. They rested 
thems€;lves beside tiiese guns, dug a hole in 
the ground, and started trench-warfare." 

From that moment on the western front 
the German army ceased to be a conquering 
army, and each step that the French soldier 
has driven back the Boche soldier the morale 
of the German soldier has weakened and the 
strength and determination of the French 
soldier to win a complete victory over his 
adversary has increased. 

It is my desire to show in a short, lucid, 
and conclusive way the simple and direct 
reasons why the war, from the German point 
99 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

of view, must cease in a short time. To 
reiterate. We must take a premise that the 
kaiser is an astute man. He therefore 
realizes that his army on the western front is 
in a precarious position; that it has made 
no advance since 1916, and that it has been 
driven back mile after mile. The emperor 
knows that during the last year at Chemin 
des Dames, October 23, 1917, where I was 
myself, three months previous to this he had 
withdrawn from the eastern front three hun- 
dred thousand of the cream of the German 
army and placed them at this the nearest 
point to Paris ; he knows that the French 
army drove this much -vaunted corps back 
ten miles, from October S3 to October S8. 
He knows that his great and glorious army 
was absolutely routed ; that he lost a comple- 
ment of fifty thousand men in five days ; that 
the whole plateau of the Aisne and the 
Chemin des Dames and the fortress of Mal- 
maison, which he had said were impregnable 
100 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

and which he had held for two solid years, 
were irretrievably lost, and that this won- 
derful machine of his was simply cut to 
pieces. He knows that the week previous to 
this, at Verdun, the French went out and 
took Hill No. 304, driving another of his 
marvellous divisions back seven miles and de- 
stroying a complement of thousands of 
Boches. He knows that the wounded, the 
men on leave who have been returning to the 
cities of Germany, have been saying to their 
fathers, mothers, sisters, wives, and brothers, 
"By God, we can't stand this any longer! 
Every time the French attack they advance. 
Their artillery is simply hell and we can't 
stand it." 

Many German prisoners have letters from 
their fathers and wives and sisters, all of 
them expressing a horror of the war contin- 
uing longer, and in some instances they touch 
upon their dire necessity and great priva- 
tions. 

101 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

The Kaiser knows that this is the direct 
reason for the civil uprisings, for the social- 
istic uprisings, for the labor uprisings 
throughout Germany. He knows that if you 
have a conquering army, you have a civiKan 
population which is peaceful, happy, and ex- 
ultant; and he knows that with a defeated 
army, which he has now on the western front, 
an army which to-night is being harassed 
and injured by an army scarcely five months 
old, the American army, the great American 
artillery, he knows that this is the forerunner 
of a peace which he must shortly make. 
Why is it, with German propaganda ram- 
pant in France, with scoundrels like Caillaux 
unhung, with the streets of Paris strewn with 
German gold, that the civilian population 
of France does not rise as they are do- 
ing in Germany at the present time ? France 
has changed three cabinets. Is there any 
one so dull of vision, so halt and lame of un- 
derstanding, that he cannot visualize the 
102 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

Machiavellian hand of the seditious Ger- 
man? Why is it that there are not to-day, 
as there have been in the past, uprisings 
throughout France? It is because the 
French army is now a conquering army. 
The German emperor knows that, and you 
may rest assured that if to-night this much- 
vaunted German army should drive the 
French back eight or ten miles into their 
own country you would hear rumblings of a 
revolution along the boulevards of Paris, in 
the streets of Soissons and Nancy, through- 
out the country lanes of Neuilly St. Front, 
and in all those picturesque and beautiful 
villages nestling in the valleys of France. 
Again we must grant the intelligence of 
the emperor. 

What are the facts that present them- 
selves to the kaiser's view to-night? The 
German army, the German people, have lost 
a great number in killed and in wounded. 
Out of two thousand prisoners whom I saw 
103 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

at Chemin des Dames in October, I did n't 
see one who looked as if he had ever used a 
razor on his face. They were conscripted 
striplings, forced by this military fist to be 
fodder for that wonderful French artillery, 
for those unsatiated guns which are hungry 
to rend and tear apart and devour the en- 
trails of the Grerman. He knows that the 
French people, the English, Italian, Ru- 
manian, and Russian peoples, all save the 
Japanese, have lost many men in killed and 
wounded, and as he sits in contemplation, 
fearful of the inevitable end which he cannot 
fail to see, as he sits to-night looking into 
the fire and sees passing before him the 
youth of his country, babies one might 
say, taken from their mothers' apron- 
strings and scarcely able to hold a gun; as 
he sees this procession of pale-faced, under- 
fed youths marching through the flame, sud- 
denly a log drops, the flames leap high iii 
the air and a picture present? itself in the 
104 




3 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

bounding, leaping tongues of fire, a vision 
which throws into his heart, not the fear of 
God, but the fear of man, the American man. 
I have taken newspapers from many pris- 
oners and wounded, Frankfort and Berhn 
papers, but never have I seen a mention of 
the Americans or the American army. And 
it is this ignorance, this darkness in which 
he has kept his army concerning the Amer- 
icans, that is going to tend more to his down- 
fall and the downfall of his army than any 
other one factor. As he sits watching the 
blazing tongues, he sees not four or ^ye mil- 
lion boys and old men, but he sees an Amer- 
ican army of ten million young men, fresh 
men, daring men, courageous men, an army 
of the cleanest, finest youth of the entire 
civilized or uncivilized world. He sees men 
with fine boots, warm stockings, good under- 
clothing, heavy overcoats, and the finest 
rapid-fire guns and the greatest artillery in 
the world, men with plenty of food in their 
105 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

stomachs, with the finest physicians, medi- 
cines, and ambulances that money can buy; 
and back of this great army of exultant, 
daring, magnificent youth, men between the 
ages of twenty-one and thirty-one, he sees 
the hand of one hundred and ten million peo- 
ple of America. He sees the wealth of the 
greatest, richest country in the world stand- 
ing as a background to this new, consecrated 
army. 

Can you conceive that this man, this intel- 
ligence, is going to permit this army to ex- 
ist ; that he is going to see the three or four 
or five hundred thousand troops we now have 
in France grow to be the greatest army in the 
world, with ten million young men in it ; that 
he is going to allow this American army to 
grow and increase by permitting the war to 
continue a day longer than it is absolutely 
necessary? He knows full well that if this 
war goes on two, three, four, or five years 
America will have the greatest army and 
106 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

navy in the world, and that each hour he 
permits this war to continue he is fostering 
and helping the Americans to build up the 
greatest military system in the world. No 
one could be so mentally slothful as to believe 
that he wishes such a thing to be consum- 
mated. Besides being astute, his imperial 
highness is a good charlatan, and there is 
little question that by the deftness of his 
brush l^e has been able to paint a picture to 
his people which they have either believed 
freely or been forced to accept. Does it 
seem credible that he dare tell the world, 
presumably a month before he is going to at- 
tack, that there is to be a great German of- 
fensive on the western front? The French, 
English, American, and Italian newspapers 
all print this " news " in headlines ; it is com- 
mon property. If Judge Gary, the chair- 
man of the United States Steel Corporation, 
has decided that he wished to get control of 
the Bethlehem Steel Company, would he 
107 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

call up all the newspapers and Mr. Schwab, 
and say : " To-morrow I am going to start 
to get control of your company " ? 

If a band of robbers were going to break 
into J. P. Morgan & Co., can any one con- 
ceive that they would call up the bank and 
advise them of their intention, practically 
stating the day and hour? 

So can any one imagine if the kaiser was 
going to make this offensive on the western 
front, he would first tell everybody about it, 
thereby precluding and absolutely injuring 
any attack that he might see fit to make.f* 

There will be no attack on the western 
front by the Germans. The German army 
does not want to attack; they have not at- 
tacked for nearly a year. They have only 
counter-attacked, and the reason for that 
has been that when you run a man down into 
a cellar and he can't get out, whether he is a 
brave man or a coward, he will fight in the 
108 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

corner for his life. That is the sole reason 
for the Boche counter-attack. 

The Russian situation, which to-day holds 
the attention of the entire world, was known 
to the most astute and clever diplomats 
some four months ago, as it was also known 
to the leading strategic generals in the vari- 
ous armies. The kaiser as early as Septem- 
ber movjed his chosen divisions from the east- 
ern to the western front, particularly in 
front of Verdun and along the Chemin des 
Dames. This is not a conjecture or a guess 
on my part, because I took my knife and cut 
off buttons and shoulder-straps from many 
German prisoners, showing the regiment of 
the crown prince and other divisions of for- 
mer note. 

One Boche turned white with fear as I ap- 
proached him with my knife. He said, " My 
God, is he going to cut my throat? " Here 
109 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

is an insight into German treatment of 
French prisoners. 

While the binoculars of public gaze have 
been, and are turned upon Russia, the far- 
seeing diplomat, using a periscope, is direct- 
ing it upon Japan. Japan is our ally and 
our friend. Japan owes much to America. 
Those Americans who were present at 
the treaty of Portsmouth, like myself, 
realize this, as well as those whom Japan 
sent to arrange a peace between Russia 
and herself. It is difficult to believe that 
when two men have been at each other's 
throats they can suddenly become allies and 
great friends. Since this is not true of the 
individual, it is not true of a nation. Japan 
has no love for Russia, nor has Russia any 
affection for Japan. Therefore it is scarcely 
credible that Japan will allow Germany to 
feast and grow fat upon the Russian bear, 
while she sits with hungry eyes looking at oil 
and coal and mineral wealth being taken over 
110 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

by the Hun. Japan has been our ally, but 
she has been an amazingly placid one. Why 
is it that Japan, of all the allied nations, has 
lost scarcely one drop of her sacred blood, 
when for three years and a half it has been 
gushing from the arteries of the wo rid .^ 
Japan is conceded to have extraordinarily 
diplomatic strategists. Her wise men saw 
that it was only a matter of time before Rus- 
sia, with her internal dissensions, her social- 
ists, anarchists, and her ignorant population, 
would disintegrate before the Germans. She 
realized that she must conserve herself to 
protect and guard and police the East not 
only for her own sake, but for the sake of the 
civilized Allied world. Japan has known 
full well the Hun desire in the Pacific and in 
the East, and if she should allow matters to 
so develop themselves in Russia according 
to the ideas of the Germans, Japan knows 
that her position there would be menaced and 
that the utmost gravity and seriousness of 
111 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

her internal interests would put her in a 
position which she could not afford to ignore 
and which she will not ignore. The Japanese 
wish to throw an army into Siberia; they 
wish the cooperation and acquiescence of the 
President of the United States. There 
seems to be no reason why the President of 
the United States or the people of the United 
States should accept any responsibility for 
Japan's sending an army into Russia, any 
more than Japan has accepted the responsi- 
bility of our sending American troops to 
France. Responsibility should and must 
rest upon Japan, and it is only for the sake 
of a worldwide morale that Japan at this mo- 
ment makes such a request of the President 
of the United States. I recall at Ports- 
mouth an idea was then being promul- 
gated for the invasion of Siberia, an inva- 
sion that would have taken in territory 
amounting to between twelve and eighteen 
hundred miles by rail to the Pacific Coast, 
112 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

and I believe that if it had not been for the 
Treaty of Portsmouth, this would certainly 
have been attempted. Two routes were 
suggested at the time, one by way of Corea 
across part of the Sea of Japan from 
Shimoneseki to Funsan and so on by rail up 
to Mukden, the trans-Siberian railway mak- 
ing good time from Tsushima Strait to 
Harbin; the other route was by Port Ar- 
thur, with the trans-Siberian railroad at 
Harbin. Though the last is the longest 
route, we know that Japan has large stores 
at Port Arthur, and this would be an ad- 
vantage. Of course the shortest route is by 
way of Corea. 

While most of the unthinking men of the 
world have whispered to themselves that 
Japan has done but a small part toward 
winning this war, the few who are far- 
sighted realize that Japan foresaw this Rus- 
sian situation, that instead of rushing her 
troops into France she has held them in re- 
113 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

serve for this purpose which is so imminent, 
namely, the salvation of the East, the stop- 
ping of the aggrandizement of the Hun, and 
the great benefit to be derived thereby for the 
Allies. There are those who distrust Japan, 
those who are always j ingoing concerning the 
" yellow peril," who attribute selfish motives 
in Japan's attitude toward Russia. I can- 
not see what difference that would make. 
Better Japan's selfishness and aggrandize- 
ment than Germany's. But that is not 
the case. It is well known that the Jap- 
anese Government has said that it does not 
wish any permanent occupancy and that it is 
not seeking any terrain aggrandizement that 
in any way would affect Russia, and we know 
that there have been many opportunities of- 
fered to Japan whereby she could have taken 
many selfish advantages of the situation and 
has not done do. So that those who are 
close students of the situation do not believe 
that Japan at this moment will be inconsist- 
114 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

ent. Japan asks the Government of the 
United States for moral support. Japan 
does not wish any American troops to aid 
her ; in fact, it would be regarded by her own 
people as a sign that Japan's motives were 
distrustful. 

The kaiser knows that he has been unable 
with the so-called greatest military organiza- 
tion in the world, during 1914, 1915, 1916, 
and 1917, to defeat the English and French 
on the western front. He knows that not 
only has he been unable to conquer, but that 
his army has been driven back, humiliated 
and defeated. How can he therefore hope, 
having been unable to defeat the French and 
English? How can he be so imbued with his 
own egotism as to suppose that he can win, 
with the American army in addition and 
Japan now for the first time taking an active 
part in the war? How can he be so eaten 
with conceit as to believe that his army, al- 
115 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

ready defeated by France and England, can 
withstand this new consecrated American 
army? I have talked with the finest intelli- 
gences in France — English, French, Colo- 
nial — and since arriving in America I have 
done likewise, and there is not one far- 
sighted, clear-visioned man who does not say 
that this emperor, self-styled the right arm 
of God Almighty, is withered nearly to the 
shoulder. 

In conclusion the writer wishes to sum up 
the situation as it presents itself to-day and 
as it will present itself in the future. 

First, the German army is no longer an 
offensive army. 

Second, the German civilian population is 
in a spirit of great unrest, due mainly to 
their lack of confidence in their army. 

Third, the German army has only been 

able to hold ground in the last year when 

greatly outnumbering the French, though 

they could not even do this at the Marne, as 

116 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

they had nine hundred thousand profes- 
sional soldiers against seven hundred thou- 
sand French amateurs, and were decisively 
cut to pieces and made to withdraw. 

Fourth, the German army has lost its 
morale. Any German prisoner will tell you, 
as they have told me, that the German army 
is broken and tired and wants to go home. 
The Boche would rather be taken prisoner 
than attack. 

FiftK, the objective of the German army, 
Paris, grows miles farther each month from 
their grasp. 

Sixth, Japan has now entered the conflict 
with a great, warlike spirit. 

Seventh, Germany will not be allowed by 
Japan to feed upon Russian bear-meat. 
The Japanese want it for themselves and the 
Allies, head, hide and carcass. 

Eighth, the Gierman army at last knows 
and realizes that the American army is at- 
tacking it, and it is beginning to under- 
117 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

stand that which the world already knows — 
that American artillery is second to none iii 
the world. Also that the President of the 
United States is determined to wage this war 
to what he and the American people consider 
a proper peace. 

Ninth, each day that the German emperor 
permits the war to continue increases Ameri- 
can efficiency, at the same time inflicting 
death and privation upon the German army 
and the German people. 

Tenth, the German emperor knows that the 
fresh, strong, virile, well-clad, courageous 
American army will destroy the worn out 
Boche army, made up of old men and boys, 
ill-cared for and tired of the struggle. It 
will destroy it whenever and wherever it meets 
it, and he knows that America is seeking en- 
gagements hourly. 

Eleventh, the English army has for the 
first time greatly lengthened its line on the 
front below St. Quentin. 
118 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

This spring will see the greatest Allied 
offensive since the war began. It will see 
the German army driven back along the 
whole front, with a loss of many hundred 
thousand Boches. This, in turn, will have 
its effect upon the civilian population in 
Germany, the people who did not seek the 
war and who do not wish it to continue 
longer; who will not permit their husbands, 
sons, and brothers to be further mutilated. 
The women of Germany, who to-day are till- 
ing the soil, scrubbing their floors, cooking, 
nursing, and caring for their children, these 
millions of women are crying out in anguish 
of soul and body, " We have given you all, 
oh! Kaiser, and you have failed, you have 
failed! Now you must give us back our 
men, before they are brought back legless, 
armless, mutilated, to make the care of them 
another added burden." 

It is a voice even he who believes himself to 
be a relative of the crucified Christ must 
119 



BATTERING THE BOCHE 

listen to and heed; it is the wail of a deter- 
mined people crying out in their desolation, 
poverty, deprivation, and anguish that they 
will no longer be the human catspaw to 
satiate the vanity of the emperor of Prussia, 
the Messenger of Mars. 



THE END 



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